(CNSNews.com) – Human rights advocates chalked up a partial victory in New York on Tuesday when Saudi Arabia failed to win a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council. But despite a strong lobbying effort China, Russia, Cuba, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan were ushered onto the world body’s top human rights watchdog for three-year terms beginning January 1.
The outcome of the secret ballot election by the full U.N. General Assembly means that more than one-quarter of the members of the Geneva-based HRC next year – 13 of the 47 – will be autocracies graded as “not free” by Freedom House. The Washington-based democracy advocacy group grades countries each year on political freedoms and civil liberties.
“The inmates are running the asylum,” commented U.N. Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, who led a campaign urging democracies to withhold support for rights abusers.
“Think of poisoned Russian dissident Alex Navalny,” Neuer said. “Think of Chinese political prisoner Wang Bingzhang. Think of the family of slain Cuban opposition leader Oswaldo Payá. What kind of message did the U.N. just send them today?”
Five of next year’s members – Eritrea, Somalia, Libya, Uzbekistan, and China – fall in the bottom 12 of the 195 countries evaluated in Freedom House’s latest assessment.
The Trump administration exited the HRC in 2018, citing among other things the poor quality of its membership.
“These elections only further validate the U.S. decision to withdraw and use other venues and opportunities to protect and promote universal human rights,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, noting that despite appeals the General Assembly had “once again elected countries with abhorrent human rights records, including China, Russia, and Cuba.”
Apart from the 13 “not free” HRC members next year, another 15 will be among those ranked as “partly free,” and the remaining 19 will be “free” democracies. With the exception of 2016, when 18 of the 47 members were “free,” the council in 2021 will have the smallest caucus of free democracies of any year in its 14-year history.
Membership terms are staggered, so 15 of the 47 seats were filled in Tuesday’s election – four each for Africa and Asia, three for Latin America, and two each for Eastern Europe and the Western Europe and Others (WEOG) group.
Asia was the only group that provided a contest – five candidates for four seats – and Saudi Arabia fared worst, receiving 90 votes in the 193-member General Assembly. The four Asia seats went to China (139 votes), Nepal (150), Pakistan (169) and Uzbekistan (169).
The four Africa seats went to Cote d’Ivoire (182), Malawi (180), Gabon (176), and Senegal (188). In the Latin American group, Cuba (170), Bolivia (172) and Mexico (175) were handed seats. The two Eastern Europe seats went to Russia (158) and Ukraine (166), while Britain (165) and France (167) took the two WEOG seats.
Last week U.N. Watch joined the Human Rights Foundation and Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights in issuing a 30-page report evaluating the candidates’ human rights records at home, as well as their voting records on U.N. resolutions dealing with human rights. It concluded that China, Cuba, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan were “unqualified,” while seven other candidates – Bolivia, Cote d’Ivoire, Nepal, Malawi, Mexico, Senegal, and Ukraine – were “questionable.”
U.N. Watch has argued that it would be better to have all 193 U.N. member-states serve on the HRC than continue holding elections which provide the opportunity to unsuitable candidates to tout their election success as evidence of global support.
The U.N. mission of Cuba’s communist regime on Tuesday duly noted in a tweet that it had received 170 votes, adding, “Thanks to those who trust in our work to defend with own voice, dialogue and cooperation, in favor of all rights for all people.”
China’s U.N. mission said it “sincerely appreciates the strong support from the wide U.N. membership, while Pakistan’s mission said it “greatly appreciate the valuable support of the international community” and is “now a proud member” of the HRC
Before the vote, a spokesman for General Assembly president Volkan Bozkir of Turkey was asked during a briefing about the fact rights-abusers were running for seats.
Brenden Varma did not directly answer the question, but read out a statement saying, in part, “The General Assembly takes into account the candidate states’ contributions to the promotion and protection of human rights as well as their voluntary pledges and commitments in this regard. With membership on the council comes a responsibility to uphold high human rights standards.”
After the vote, however, Bozkir himself tweeted his congratulations to all 15 successful candidates by name.
